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Comic Legends: Did Stan Lee Try to Have a Comic Book Starring Satan?

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and sixty-sixth week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

As always, there will be three different posts for each legend this week!

COMIC LEGEND:

Stan Lee pitched a comic book series that would star Satan.

STATUS:

True

The early 1970s were an interesting time for horror. The era of slasher films was still years away. Even vampire films had fallen by the wayside a bit. However, horror was still making a comeback in popular culture. One of the best-selling books out was The Excorist, which would later be turned into a hit film. Rosemary’s Baby had been a disturbingly successful film a few years earlier and now, with the relaxed Comics Code standards, Marvel could finally get into doing color comic book series featuring vampires, wolfmen and the like.

In 1972, Marvel launched a hit comic book series called The Tomb of Dracula…

The series starred Dracula, but there were also regular antagonists who were out to kill him once and for all.

In 1973, Stan Lee came up with another idea in the same vein as Tomb of Dracula. He wanted to do a comic book series that would star SATAN! Dubbed The Mark of Satan (to go with The Tomb of Dracula), Lee didn’t have much in mind besides the fact that it would star Satan. Presumably, he would have had good people in the comic book trying to take Satan down.

Roy Thomas, though, believe that this was going too far. Thomas was worried that the public would never accept a comic book with Satan as the main character, even if he was a villain. So he pitched Lee on the idea of the comic book starring the SON of Satan. Lee loved the idea.

Soon, Damion Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, kind of made his first appearance in Ghost Rider #1…

but REALLY made his first full appearances in Marvel Spotlight #12…

The Son of Satan proved to be a hit. It became popular enough to graduate into its own series in 1975, but then the novelty must have worn off, as it did not even last 10 issues.

Better luck next time, Satan! Thanks to Roy Thomas and Back Issue Magazine for the information!